SiteGround PHPBB Tutorial

3/11/2009 SiteGround phpBB Tutorial: Print Frie…
SiteGround Tutorials
phpBB Tutorial
NEW! We are happy to introduce to you our new phpBB 3 tutorial! SiteGround is proud to offer free
phpBB 3 installation with its phpBB hosting package.
Note: phpBB2 is no longer supported by its developers. Therefore, this tutorial is outdated. We strongly
recommend you to use the new version of the application phpBB3 for your websites. For more
information on how to install and manage a phpBB3 forum on your website, please refer to our new
phpBB3 tutorial. In the new version there are many security improvements as well many new features.
Keeping your software up-to-date is very important in order to keep your website secured.
If you already have a phpBB2 forum, you can convert it to phpBB3 by following the detailed instructions in
our Converting from phpBB2 to phpBB3 tutorial.
This phpBB2 tutorial will help you learn how to manage your discussion board. Below you can have a
look at the topics we have included.
How to use phpBB2 forum software

How to install phpBB on your website / hosting account;
How to administer your forum;
How to manage your forum groups and users;
Learn how to change your phpBB template;
How to add smilies and avatars in phpBB;
How to backup your phpBB system;
How to upgrade your phpBB to latest stable version.
We have included a link to our PHPNuke tutorial in order to help you integrate phpBB and
phpNuke;
phpBB installation
Get a FREE phpBB installation with SiteGround PHPBB hosting Package!
To start the installation process, please log in to your your cPanel. The cPanel Button is located in your
customer area under Manage Account. Once in cPanel, look for the smiling face icon of Fantastico ( )
and click it.
Check out the phpBB installation video tutorial:

phpBB Installation Video Tutorial
phpBB Installation Detailed Tutorial
Once logged into Fantastico, please select the phpBB link from the list of scripts that appears to the left.
siteground.com/…/printtutorial.php 1/16
A short description of the board will appear. Locate the New installation link and click that.
The first thing to select is the domain name you would like to install the board to (this is only applicable
in case you have more than one domain name, pointed to your account). The Install in directory box can
be left empty in case you want to have your forum as the starting page for your website
(http://www.yourdomain.com/.); you can specify a directory, e.g forum, in case you want to have your
phpBB installed at http://www.yourdomain.com/forum.
Next, please select the username and the password for the forum administrator (password can be
changed later on from the forum configuration panel).
When filling the Site name and the Short description fields, please remember that those will appear
in the header of each page of your forum.
Do not forget to set the administrative e-mail address to the desired one, and select the working
language of the board.
When done entering the information, please click the Install phpBB2 button. The next page will confirm
the installation details. Please proceed by clicking Finish installation.
You will be taken to a page with the addresses of the forum and the administrative panel of the board.
Please bookmark the addresses of the forum and the administrative panel, as you will be visiting them frequently.
Good job! You have successfully installed your phpBB forum application!
phpBB Administration
In order to start managing your forum, please visit the administration panel. The address looks like this:
http://yourdomain.com/forum/admin/
Please note you will need to authenticate yourself twice in order to be able to reach the control panel.
This is a security feature that makes it a bit harder for one that would try to overtake you forum.
After being authenticated you will be taken to the Administrator's index. Statistic information about the
forum will be displayed, as well as the version and details about the users currently online. You will also
see a number of administrator function portals in the column to the left.
In order to configure the forum, please go to the Configuration link in the General Admin section.
Here you can change the domain name, the name and the description of your website.
In case you are disabling the board during maintenance, please enable it again prior to logging out,
otherwise it will become inaccessible.
The Enable account activation regards the way new user accounts are activated. The default setting is
None, but we recommend the User level - an e-mail with an activation link is being sent to the user's
email. The Admin setting requires that the forum administrator activates the new user account. The rest
of the options do have their effect explained. Please note that turning ON the Gzip compression may
result in part of your visitors not being able to see updates.
The last section of the configuration deals with forum related e-mail delivery. Please only change the
Admin e-mail address and the Email signature. SiteGround has optimized its servers to work with
the default settings of phpBB.
When done editing the forum settings, please click the Submit button at the bottom of this screen. You
can notice the changes by clicking the Forum index link in the Administration section.
phpBB Administration: Avatars and Smilies

In order to add a new smilies (a.k.a. emoticons) you should first login to your administrative area.
Usually the administrative area can be found in a subdirectory named 'admin',so if your message board
is being hosted on http://example.com/phpbb, the administrative interface should be on
http://example.com/phpbb/admin/.
Once logged to your administrative area, click on Smilies from the General Admin menu. The menu is
located on the left side of your screen.
Once you are inside that area you have a few options depending on what you are trying to achieve:
add just one smilie;

import a whole smilie pack;
create a smilie pack.
Let us take a closer look at the first option.
Click on the button Add a new Smilie and wait for the page to load. You should see something like this
one:
In the smilie code field you should type the sequence of characters that will be used for the smilie to
show up,for example the "smile" emoticon is ":)" (without the quotes), so place what you desire to use
for accessing that smilie inside that field.
The second field is the so-called drop-drown menu, you should select the image for the smolie from this
menu.
Please note that you should have the image uploaded already inside the images/smilies subfolder of your phpBB.
The last field is for typing the description of the smilie. For example, for the normal smile emoticon
this field is "Smile".
You are now on one click away from adding this new smilie to your message board, the only step that
has left is to click the "Submit" button and you are ready.
Congratilations, you have just added your smilie to the message board.
If you want to add an avatar to your forum, you should connect to the FTP and upload the new avatar(s)
to the images/avatars folder.
Please bear in mind that the permissions of the new file should be at lest 555 (if you are being hosted on linux) or
read+execute (if you are being hosted on windows - the so-called asp.net hosting service)
Forum Administration: Categories and Forums
In phpBB there are options to create new categories and forums, or to edit the existing ones. First off,
let's turn the Test category into a live one. Click the Edit link that is on the same line as the category
name.
On the screen you are taken to, you can type in the new category name in the box provided. Clicking
the Update button will apply the change.
You can change the name of the existing forum the very same way: by clicking the Edit link opposite
the forum name. Aside from the name, you will need to enter a description, and select a parenting
category - the new forum will appear under that.
You can select whether the forum will be locked (accessible to administrators and moderators only) or
unlocked (accessible to all members). The Auto-pruning function is optional. When done, please
click the Update button.
When you return to the Forum index, you will notice the new way your forum is organized.
You can also add brand new categories and forums. This can be done through filling in the boxes next
to the respective button:
When done creating categories and forums, you can visit the Forum index to see the new additions.
Using the Move up and Move down links you can entirely rearrange your forum.
Creating a new forum category is done through filling the box in front of the button with the desired
category name and clicking the button. Same applies for creating new forums. You will notice there are
New forum buttons for each and every category. Please note that subcategories cannot be created.
(c) Copyright 2005 SiteGround Forum Hosting Services. All rights reserved
Group Administration and Permissions
Next thing to do is creating groups in your forum. These are needed when you would like to
differentiate user privileges, like giving moderator privileges to certain users. To start that, select the
Management link in the Group admin section. You will need to create a group first, since phpBB
does not come with pre-created user groups.
The characteristics of a new group are its name, description, the moderator you select for the group
(can be looked up through the Find a username button). Last, select whether the group can be
joined by additional users, or is closed.
When done, please click the Submit button at the bottom of the filed.
You will be able to later on change the details of a group - w hen you return to the group
administration panel, select the group you need. You can change the group moderator, add a new
one or delete the group.
We will now set the group Permissions through the respective option in the Group admin section.
Select the group you are looking for and click the Lookup Group button. In the panel that appears,
you will be able to select in which of the forums w ill the group members will be moderators.
When done, click the Submit button to apply your changes.
In addition to group controls you may have individual privileges set up for every user in your forum. To
do that, please go to the User Admin section and click the Permissions tab. Select the user, whose
privileges you would like to edit and click the Look up User.
Aside from the user type, you are able to set access permissions to any of the forums that are
currently active. After setting the privileges, please click the Submit button.
User Administration and Permissions. Ban control
You can also set up individual privileges to users. To do that, please follow the Permissions link in the
User Admin menu. Type in the username you would like the change the privileges for and click the
Look up User button.
The next screen will allow you to change the access level of the user, as well as edit his moderator
privileges.
Clicking the Submit button will apply the changes immediately.
Through the Ban Control link you can deny access to users by different criteria: be it username, e-mail
address or IP address.
It is important to remember that banning an IP address will disallow all users, who use that IP, to view
your forum.
phpBB Styles and Templates
Click here for FREE Download
of personal and business templates for phpBB
Styles Administration: phpBB templates
How to change the Template of your phpBB Forum?
SiteGround web hosting has released great-looking phpBB templates for personal and business sites,
which you can dow nload and use FREE of charge!
In order to change the template of your forum, you w ill first need to download the desired template's
files to your local computer. They usually come as a compressed file, so make sure you unpack that on
your machine. The result should be a folder w ith the template's name, containing two other folders
and a number of files.
When the extraction is done, connect to your web hosting account using FTP. The FTP client will
display you the files and folders you have on your website, and there you will be able to upload the
new theme. Open the www folder and then the directory, w here your forum is located. Look for the
templates folder and upload the extracted content of your archive there.
Wait until all the files are transmitted to your account.
When the upload is complete, please go to the Styles Admin menu. Select the Add link. Your newly
uploaded template will appear. Click the Install link.
Next, please go to the Configuration link in the General Admin menu. Scroll to the Default Style
option and select the new template you have just installed.
When done, please go to the bottom of the configuration screen and click the Submit button in
order to make your new template active. Enjoy!
phpBB Backup
How to create a backup of your phpBB forum?
If for some reason you want to archive the current state of your forum that is powered by the phpBB2
message board system, you should first login to your administrative area.
There are a few options how to create your backup:
Full backup;
Structure-Only backup;
Data only backup
All of them will provide you w ith a valid backup of your website, but depending on what backup exacty
you want - you should select a different option.
The most widely used option is the Full backup, as it provides you w ith the full database backup of the
forum, w hile the other options contains only part of the database.
For example, the "Structure-Only backup" w ill provide you with the structure of the database
(structure of the tables), but will not provide you with the data itself.
In order to backup the database you should login to your administrative area and click "Backup
Database" from the menu that is being displayed on the left side of the screen.
Now you should select the backup type that you w ould like to download on your computer and click
the "Start Backup" button.
The form that you should see is something like the one below:
Please note the "Gzip compress file" option, as it would compress the backup file before sending it to
you and therefore is a nice option. I kindly recommend you to enable it if your hosting provider
supports the GZip compression method. (if you hosted with SiteGround you have that option enabled).
After pressing the "Start Backup" button you should be redirected to a page w hich looks like this:
As stated, the dow nload process should begin shortly.
Please, bear in mind that if your database is big in size, the process will take longer.
Well done! You have successfully created a backup of your message board.
PHP-Nuke Modules: Forum
How to activate phpBB Forum software to your PHP-Nuke site
Forums are the 'must-have' component for every CMS/Portal system and as such PHP-Nuke developers
had phpBB (probably the most popular forum softw are available on the net) built into phpNuke for your
convenience.
In order to activate the forums module, you will just have to log in your administration screen, click on
modules and activate it using the activate icon as shown here:
Once activated, the module will be available for administration/management through your admin
control panel -> Forums.
(c) Copyright 2005 SiteGround PHP Hosting Services. All rights reserved.
Coppermine with Bulletin Boards
Integrating Coppermine with phpBB
The Coppermine Bridging (integration) Manager lets you integrate the gallery w ith both the latest
version of phpBB and ones prior to it. Please note that the integration process is different for versions
2.0.18 or better and the ones prior to it. With that being said, let us proceed w ith the actual
integration. Log in as an administrator and navigate your way to the Bridging Manager. We have done
several test integration w ith phpBB while w riting this tutorial and noticed that if you are running a
phpBB which was initially installed with a version prior to 2.0.18 and then upgraded to the latest
version, you w ill have to select phpBB versions prior to 2.0.18 for the integration. The integration
process is the same for both version 2.0.18 and the ones prior to it.
Note that before proceeding w ith the integration process you w ill have to install the application you are
going to bridge w ith Coppermine, in this case phpBB. You can refer to our phpBB tutorial for further
instructions.
Once both the applications are ready, open your Bridge Manager and select the correct phpBB version
and click next.
On the next step you have to point w here is your board installed - URL to the installation and a relative
path to the installation.
In our case the forum is installed in /home/user/public_html/forum while Coppermine is

installed at (/home/user/public_html/), so the URL for the phpBB installation would be
http://yourdomainname.com/forum and the path from gallery to the board folder would be
./forum/ as shown on the screenshot. Click Next.
Use post-based groups option - Should the groups from the BBS that are defined by the number of
posts be taken into account (allows a granular permissions management) or just the default groups
(makes administration easier, recommended). You can change this setting later as well. This is an
option which you decide w hether to use or not, w e had it enabled during the integration.
Click Next when you are done. That will take you to the summary screen of the integration.
Select enable when you are prompted whether to enable the phpBB integration, click Finish and you
are done. Your phpBB forum and your Coppermine gallery now share the same username database and
once logged in one of the applications you are automatically being logged in the other one as well.
(c) Copyright 2005 SiteGround Image Hosting Services. All rights reserved
Gallery and phpBB
The Gallery integration module for phpBB 2 can be downloaded here - you need to create a user
account before the download:
http://www .nukedgallery.net/downloads-cat12.html
This module can be easily installed w ith the Easy MOD installer for phpBB.
Please mind that the application integration can be a difficult and a time consuming procedure.
SiteGround.com provides it as a paid service. If you need assistance with the phpBB-Gallery integration,
please post a ticket in Exclusive Professional Services -> Application Integration.
(c) Copyright 2005 SiteGround web hosting services. All rights reserved

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3/11/2009 SiteGround phpBB Tutorial: Print Frie…

How to use phpBB2 forum software

Check out the phpBB installation video tutorial:

phpBB Administration: Avatars and Smilies

add just one smilie;

Let us take a closer look at the first option.

Forum Administration: Categories and Forums

Group Administration and Permissions

When done, click the Submit button to apply your changes.

User Administration and Permissions. Ban control

Clicking the Submit button will apply the changes immediately.

Styles Administration: phpBB templates

How to change the Template of your phpBB Forum?

Wait until all the files are transmitted to your account.

How to create a backup of your phpBB forum?

There are a few options how to create your backup:

As stated, the dow nload process should begin shortly.

PHP-Nuke Modules: Forum

How to activate phpBB Forum software to your PHP-Nuke site

Coppermine with Bulletin Boards

Integrating Coppermine with phpBB

In our case the forum is installed in /home/user/public_html/forum while Coppermine is

Gallery and phpBB

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